Nonplanar Printing plugin
This looks like an interesting project, and its open source.
What's the chance of seeing this in PrusaSlicer?
https://tams.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/research/3d-printing/nonplanar_printing/index.php
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
Looks like an interesting concept!
Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
My guess is, like most academic projects, this would require a lot of work before it could be part of the slicer. Still, it would be nice. I've had some prints that would look much nicer with this kind of plugin.
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
From the video, they already incorporated the code into Slic3r and have given it an GNU open license.
My only concern, and I have to say the technology/theory looks very promising, is the hardware limitations of the typical extruder.
A print is limited by the nozzle tip to surrounding parts - including nozzle approach angles. So only lower angles are possible. The terrain they show in the video is an ideal candidate: less than 8 mm total variation and no approach angles greater than 30 degrees.
But, I could see an extruder optimized for the technology that cold do better. But may take some impressive engineering and new materials; maybe a chemical extrusion process, cold flow, fast setting epoxy.
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
I'm wondering if a delta printer wouldn't be a better choice for this style of printing. AFAIK, the printer already has to do some heavy trig to make sure the print-head stays vertical. If the slicer/printer accurately knows the bottom surface geometry of the full print-head (and the relation of the drive-rod anchor points to the nozzle tip) it might be able to angle the extruder to keep the nozzle normal to the surface being printed (to keep the flat around the orifice on the nozzle parallel to the surface being printed) and also warn about collisions.
See my (limited) designs on:
Printables - https://www.printables.com/@Sembazuru
Thingiverse - https://www.thingiverse.com/Sembazuru/designs
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
Tim, thinking about it, you make some good points. There might be parts of the model that can be improved by this approach, but other parts which cannot. You would almost need to run a simulation with a 3D model of the print head to detect any collisions. I wonder if you could even do the model in stages to optimize the top surface while avoiding collision. That sounds like a pretty complex slicer
sembasuru, keeping the print head normal to the surface sounds like something interesting. I've not seen a delta printer in operation. How quickly does the z axis move? It would want to move quickly to keep print speed reasonable.
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
I would love to see this in PrusaSlicer. I always wished to have my round objects to be smoother. I worked around it with the variable layer height but this seems to make much better results.
RE: Nonplanar Printing plugin
a "simplier" approach could be to print several layer mixed. the tolerance for a 0.05 layer allow without problem to mix until at least 6 layer for the z value. If it's iterative/incremental the mix is done from bottom to up part. it will give better look on perimeter and also better structure solidity.